Seats still undecided — including John Howard’s ‘old’ seat of Bennelong
UPDATE:
Maxine has officially WON! A sitting Prime Minister, only the second one in Australian history, has been voted out by his local constituents. Miracles *do* happen!
I say ‘old’ because hopefully that is how things will work out. Well, it will eventually. Maxine McKew is ahead by about 2500 votes, but there are a lot of ones still not counted — postals and votes cast in different states for that seat by people who were travelling on the day. 81% of the vote is counted and the postals don’t stop until I think 4 December. There are nearly 16,000 votes that were sent out for non-appearance voting. People can vote at out-of-state voting places in other parts of the country, and those votes are sent to the home electorates for counting.
Howard hasn’t conceded. The speculation is that he’s holding out to not be only the second sitting Prime Minister to have lost his seat. He is not expected to actually serve in the Parliament if he wins. He will immediately resign, requiring a new vote, presumably also contested by Maxine.
A local radio guy [Red Symons] said this morning: where’s Jeb Bush when you need him?
PS: I don’t know who my local member will be either. It’s also a too close to call seat. [La Trobe]